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Okay, as cliche as it may sound, we mean it. We are here to service you, to provide the latest thoughts, trends, affirmations, and anecdotes concerning the wonderful world of video games. We'll have it all: the classics, the obscure, and all the crap inbetween. What makes a game good? Why is there so much crap? And why is the crap so damn popular?
So what has been going on? Well, the big news is the simultaneous quiet death and rebirth of Sega. At a time when millions of loyal Sega gamers are being lead on a hopelessly frustrating trail to track down the bottom of the barrel in terms of U.S. releases for the Saturn (Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, etc.), Sega has finally announced it's latest system, DREAMCAST, which seems to weigh in at a hefty 128 bits (?!).
First off, it obviously no suprise that the Saturn is hobbling on it's last leg. And it's no real suprise either that near it's demise is when the system get's the best games (it's always happend before, like with the Genesis and the SUper NES). But what is a suprise, and I dare say down right atrocious is, how Sega only release a extremely low quanity of Panzer (estiamted at only 2,000 copies). TO me it's a direct smack in the face to all of those who have stodd by the system and company through thcik, thin, and thinner. And there is sure as hell more than 2,000 of us. Many were forced to go on a wild goose chase, followning one false lead after another, and facing exorbitant prices, all to get the holy grail of Saturn games (or maybe it was just me). Perhaps Sega couldn't anticipate the massive critval hype it would recieve. At any rate, I went through hell tracking down a copy, but I got it and yes, believe the hype. More on that later.
So as Sega hands out the last few bones to the Saturn faithfull, the next big thing is being prepared. Dreamcast, known also in the past as Dural, Giga Drive, Saturn 2, Dragon, Kitana, and many other obscure developmental names, is being carefully preparedt to take back lost ground that Sony has attained (much from Nintendo actually). Storis and speculations have been going on for many omnths, with just as much time being dedicated to the carefull unvailing. THe biggest point of contention, obviulsy, is the name. Dreamcast...what the hell? SO came up with that?
A while back, I and a few others my age (actually I lied about my age) were chosen to participate in a focus group to help decide the name for Sega's super consloe. After a list of ten or so canidates, two were left; Odyssi and Nexium. I went for Nexium with most viying for Odyssi. I reminded everyone that it was the name of a past console (a past FAILED console). Everyone felt that it was in the past ans that no kid would ever know nor care, but I tried to point out that the kid's parent would know, the same parent who would be shelling out the cash for the system, but to no avail. So where did Dreamcast come from? It was on the list, and it was practically the first one to be writeen off.
ANyways, the system is expected to herald the next level of games, and this time Sega hopes to get it right. By alligning themselves with Bill Gates and scoring a WIndows based OS, they hope to avoid what happend with the Saturn, a powerful system that was way to messy and difficult to use. To be continued...